{"id":25477,"date":"2025-03-11T11:11:02","date_gmt":"2025-03-11T18:11:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.roryc.ca\/blog\/?p=25477"},"modified":"2025-03-10T18:36:41","modified_gmt":"2025-03-11T01:36:41","slug":"provision-of-the-assessment-act-restrains-housing-supply-density","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.roryc.ca\/blog\/2025\/03\/provision-of-the-assessment-act-restrains-housing-supply-density\/","title":{"rendered":"Provision of The Assessment Act Restrains Housing Supply &#038; Density"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">A section of the Assessment Act that allows longtime homeowners to pay below-market property tax if their neighbourhood evolves is coming under scrutiny as the province pushes for greater housing supply and density.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Section 19(8) allows land to be assessed at a below-market value if a homeowner has continuously used it as their principal residence for at least 10 years and other criteria are met, such as the land being less than five acres and having a higher value as a redevelopment site. Homeowners must apply annually, and applications received after March 15 will not be reviewed.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">While there are no immediate plans to modify the legislation, it is coming into focus as the province encourages density in BC\u2019s cities, particularly through small-scale, multi-unit housing (SSMUH) and mixed-use rezoning.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">\u201cMaybe a person [has] lived in a house for a really long time, and over the course of that time, the community had changed, maybe official community plans had been passed, and you started to see \u2026 commercial buildings or higher-density residential ..\u2026 driving up land values, which drive up property taxes along with that,\u201d explained Bryan Murao, assessor with BC Assessment.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">\u201cYou\u2019re seeing someone potentially taxed out of their home because they couldn\u2019t afford the property taxes anymore, even though it wasn\u2019t something they could have predicted.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Examples of eligible properties could include a single-family house next to a 20-storey tower, a property on an unusually large lot that has subdivision potential, or a home in an area that is shifting from residential to commercial or mixed uses, he said.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Amid an affordability crisis, there are concerns that section 19(8) could be hindering provincial efforts aimed at ramping up density and supply.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">\u201cI\u2019m wondering if that section gets looked at, just with the government coming out with their \u2018naughty list\u2019 saying here\u2019s all these communities that have got to speed up housing and bring more supply to market,\u201d said Jeff Tisdale, CEO of Landcor Data Corp., which provides automated home valuations to banks and credit unions.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">\u201cThere\u2019s going to be a lot of rich discussion around what to do with this section, [such as] protecting the longtime homeowner or the dwelling versus the greater good of the neighbourhood or the community.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Murao said it\u2019s for politicians to decide the future of section 19(8), and that BC Assessment just follows its legislative orders. He said most section 19(8) properties eventually get sold, ending their special tax treatment, and that the number of such properties might not be big enough to have a substantial impact on BC\u2019s housing supply.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">For roll year 2025, there are 1,119 section 19(8) properties in the City of Vancouver, 651 in Coquitlam, 614 in Surrey, 447 in Burnaby, 317 in Langley, 269 in Richmond, 249 in Port Coquitlam, 173 in North Vancouver, 152 in Maple Ridge and 146 in Kelowna.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">All these municipalities were on the provincial government\u2019s \u201cnaughty list\u201d in 2023. In the province as a whole, there are currently 5,783 such properties, a one-per-cent increase from roll year 2024.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Murao said that in the wake of SSMUH legislation, there has been some confusion among homeowners and experts regarding section 19(8) and its application.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">\u201cWhen the government passed Bill 44 \u2026 and most of the municipalities around the Lower Mainland and the province [had] to go in and update their single-family zoning bylaws to support these higher-density uses, ..\u2026 influential people at real estate brokerage firms or even some media bodies looked at that and said, \u2018Okay, so zoning bylaws now allow this, therefore I\u2019m getting taxed on this development potential.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">However, Murao said it will take time for the \u201chighest and best use\u201d to change for single-family neighbourhoods. It requires actual uptake and changes in behaviour by buyers, sellers, developers and appraisers. Permitted uses alone are not enough to trigger the section.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">\u201cUntil you can actually find the market activity, [where] you\u2019re seeing sales evidence that properties in your neighbourhood are actually selling for more for redevelopment potential, there isn\u2019t actually a benefit for section 19(8),\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Landcor\u2019s Tisdale said he\u2019ll be watching from the sidelines to see whether this provision of the Assessment Act eventually gets revisited.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">\u201cI read the newspaper and see all the discussion around housing, and I wonder at what point does this get looked at by the government and they kind of tweak the section, not to penalize people for living in their home for 30 years, but maybe incentivizing them to move along a little bit quicker,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">\u201cIt\u2019s a curiosity in the housing market that I kind of just sort of keep an eye to.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.biv.com\/news\/real-estate\/property-tax-curiosity-complicating-bcs-housing-density-drive-10228072\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Property Tax &#8220;Curiosity&#8221; Complicating BC&#8217;s Housing Density Drive<\/a> by Jami Makan | BIV<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A section of the Assessment Act that allows longtime homeowners to pay below-market property tax if their neighbourhood evolves is coming under scrutiny as the province pushes for greater housing &hellip; [<a href=\"https:\/\/www.roryc.ca\/blog\/2025\/03\/provision-of-the-assessment-act-restrains-housing-supply-density\/\">read more<\/a>]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-25477","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-real-estate"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Provision of The Assessment Act Restrains Housing Supply &amp; Density &#8226; 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